THE STARTLING, VERY FINE WORK OF THE BEAUTIFUL ANTONIA ALEXANDRA KLIMENKO - FIVE POEMS AS LOVELY AS HER

Antonia Alexandra Klimenko was first introduced on the BBC and to the literary world by the legendary James Meary Tambimuttu of Poetry London–-publisher of T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Henry Miller and Bob Dylan, to name a few.  After his death, it was his friend, the late great Kathleen Raine, who took an interest in her and encouraged her to write. A former San Francisco Poetry Slam Champion, she is widely published. Her work has appeared in (among others) XXI Century World Literature (in which she represents France) and Maintenant : Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art archived at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She is the recipient of two grants: one from Poets in Need, of which Michael (100 Thousand Poets for Change) Rothenberg is a co-founder; the second—the 2018 Generosity Award bestowed on her by Kathleen Spivack and Joseph Murray for her outstanding service to international writers through SpokenWord Paris where she is Writer/ Poet in Residence. Her collected poems, On the Way to Invisible is forthcoming in Spring of next year.

All rights reserved solely by the author.

The Merry-Go-Round

So here we go again   you and I

picking up speed   on our magic steed

gliding   up and down  

whirling   round and round

with no ending or beginning

Everything happens like this

Everything passes through us--

a breath   a memory   a vision  

some inexplicable Miracle

that has happened before

that is happening right now

all   at   the   same   time

One moment…

you’re a child of six  

riding into the sunset   on a wooden horse

Next moment…

You’re a child of six-ty  

stepping  back into yourself  

like your favorite rerun

Tonight

your dreams have packed their bags

and are leaving for Paris without you

your night-lite is flirting with that first star on the right

all the lovers in the world are coming together 

in spontaneous combustion

In this very moment…

a stellar explosion 

thousands of light-years away 

is spinning through space  

is becoming   that radiant smile  

on your down-turned face

Past future and present

are converging in harmonic synchronistic rhythm

The sun and moon are aligning

with Venus Jupiter and Mars

Energy synergy electricity    deaf lightning 

is coursing through your varicose veins

Every broken atom   every imagined pain

every cell is being reborn     

Words that have flown south  

missing in action   or in revision

are coming alive   are exploding into light  

are taking back the night                                                                  

The unspoken and unsaid   are at this very instant  

orbiting your head   

Soon…                                                                                                 

dust particles are colliding coalescing

merging converging    to form a new planet 

The music of the spheres is unrehearsed

Black cosmic rays are holding the magnetic field--

a convex mirror in reverse                                                                   

My tears   a cinematic film  

are rolling back into my eyes

Regret that once escaped my lips  

is falling to its knees

is begging me to PLEASE not wear it  

like a saddle ‘round my hips

is begging for forgiveness

So here were are again   you and I

on a carousel in the dark

We fall off our horse    and dust ourselves off

and fall in love   again   of course     

before it grows cold and stark

One day we’ll get it right   you know

The moon is out tonight   you know

Nothing is by chance

The music is playing   

Remember our first kiss?

Please save me    this one last dance

Feather Pillows 

                            How unbearably white
                                 The blind on the white window.

                                                    --Anna Akhmatova

That Winter 

my grandmother reached into the sky 

for dreams bluer than blue
to slip inside our heads

while we lay sleeping

Every morning  

flowers sang   from outside her window
In the pleats of her skirt---choruses of Irving Berlin
Every day 

summersaults of grass  

                                    sprang from under her feet
and every tree on every corner  

                                                whose every leaf was a poem
invited her to dance on air
 

That Winter   in San Francisco  

she was looking for Summer  

when all   the sweet humming in her veins 

spilled into the street   like a Gershwin Rhapsody
 

How she slipped into that pillow— so unbearably white-- 

awakens to this moment    as I breathe in the air 

Is it your sky   Grandmother? that reaches into me?
I reach into myself     to find my own leaves of summer 

like all dreams eternal     slipping into light 

Our Lady

 Flames scorch your walls   your wood-beamed ceilings

Gargoyles lick the smoke-filled air

Your ancient timbers once echoed in forests

Now turn to ash    but you’re still there

Centuries have not obscured your face

Nor revolutions your holy brow

How you’ve looked at the world through rose-colored glass

How saints pass through you even now

How many have entered your sacred space

Like the mirrored moon from behind her veil

Bright flickering stars crown your thorny head

They would raise your roof but to no avail

As April springs into fragrant flower

Memory stands transfixed   transformed

We are all but hunchbacks in the Belltower

We were all meant to be reborn

Surreal Architect of Untold Meaning

Unfolding petals   on the tremulous Seine

How you inspire   mute words on fire

The passion of love   the burst of flame

Living Canvas   City of Light

Your candles lit from within our souls

The intimate silence of your unspoken prayer

It is for us    for whom the bell tolls

I hear them now

at my tear-stained window

Ave Maria Ave Maria

Just beyond the River’s bend

Hymns in the night

Angels of Light

Glimpses of iconic vision

Our heart is melting

The world is turning

Paris is burning

Twilight

His love of open space

left blanks between his words
gaps   between his teeth
silences within
All intervals in time--
the measure of   height and width
the depth in which all things exist

and move    moved in him--
a boundless three dimensional
journeying between the planets and the stars
the flat surfaces of  his mind

How he distanced himself
from things and people
invading his terrain--
floor space   parking space
objects and events which occurred 

in the space which occupied him--the Absolute Space--
was beyond even him

Often he would go to great lengths
extending himself
the rings around his eyes--
sunken in their dark orbits
spinning
in some alternate Universe

Space
is relative to position and direction
he said
but only in the physical realm
The celestial beauty of inner space

is infinite  
There is no separation   between
sunrise and sunset
shadow and light
the dead and the living
Life belongs to both worlds
and to neither--
rests in the breath
inhabits the mystery
of here

and oh so there

He said   he said                                                                

taking one last drag
on his burnt-out cigarette
before he shut the door

behind him

Blew his brains out
in the hallway     he did

Now, go to Hell !
he said

 Song of the Dying

                                                    Hello darkness my old friend

                                               Sounds of Silence—Simon and Garfunkel

           

O   Dark Sphere–

face revolving with the earth

changing shape and color–

will I never see the whole picture?

I am falling within

the flickering shadows

of my eyes   They are the fields

of childhood

patterned with liquid dream

disappearing into their horizons

I am closing within

the closing eye of the needle

that threads light

through the visible veil

of God’s invisible world

I know all your human songs from memory

The unpopular   the unsung

remain on my lips–-

my mouth opening like a grave

Who   with her long black gloves

holds a hand darker than night

and places it over each living eye

so we cannot look into the Light–

the beautiful Light that remembers?

Tell me   Old Friend 

is it your bow

that draws so sweetly

across the universe of my heart–

a single violin?